


The Witch in the Woods

by bar2d2s



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M, Oral Sex, Shapeshifter Kylo, Witch AU, Witch Hux, a fun switcharoo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2016-09-14
Packaged: 2018-08-15 00:00:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8034133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bar2d2s/pseuds/bar2d2s
Summary: Originally posted here.





	The Witch in the Woods

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](http://thirstmastercrylo.tumblr.com/post/150342098185/the-witch-in-the-woods).

He already has a perfectly good familiar in Millicent. She’s quiet and courteous and sleeps curled up on whatever stack of books Hux doesn’t need at the moment. Cats are the traditional familiars for witches that live in the woods, and she looks so good sitting on his shoulder.

When the black wolf comes into his life, Hux is certain that it’s a death omen. But death omens don’t come to heel when he yelps in surprise at them, and death omens don’t butt their heads against knees to ask for pats. Death omens don’t invite themselves into his house, or settle down contentedly on the rug by the hearth. Hux wonders to himself if this wolf was someone’s pet, or an escaped performing animal.

And then, when he brings the wolf a portion of his own supper, it sits up on its hind legs and transforms into a man, nude but for a fur cloak.

The man doesn’t speak at first, communicating in growls and yips. Hux wonders if the wolf became a man, or if a man had become a wolf. He worries about it harder when he coaxes the man to shed his cloak and bathe, because it suddenly becomes obvious that when he isn’t caked in leaves and dirt, the man is very handsome. Hux hopes that he was born human. There are just some lines that, hermit or not, he doesn’t plan on ever crossing.

The man likes to rest his cheek on Hux’s knee while he pours over his books, and Hux has gotten into the habit of carding his fingers through his dark, thick hair. The man doesn’t sleep in his only bed, Millicent simply will not allow it, and besides. He is still a beast in many respects. He prefers his food bloody and raw, and uses the woods as a bathroom. He defends the borders of the land Hux has claimed for himself from everything except the pack of wolves that roams by every now and then. He seems to have a special liking for them.

Ten months have passed before the man says his first words. Hux had been calling for him, “Come here, wolf”, but when he approached and sat on his haunches to transform, instead of growling, he spoke. His voice was hoarse from disuse, and hearing it caused a painful tightening in Hux’s stomach.

“My name is Kylo.” He’d said, taking one of Hux’s hands in both of his, sharp nails scraping the soft skin on his wrist.

Kylo is soft-spoken and mysterious. He hunts with the pack of, what Hux has determined to be, normal wolves. They mostly bring back deer and rabbit, but one time Kylo had returned with a chicken in his bloody jaws, and Hux starts to wonder just how far into town his provider goes. He hopes no one attributes the actions of the wolves to him.

Hux still allows Kylo to rest his head in his lap, once he’s clean. Now that he’s sure that he isn’t a mindless beast, he talks to him. Hux tells him of a devout, adulterous father and a mother that could make beautiful flowers grow from the dead earth, who could heal any wound or illness with the right herbs. She’d been a witch as well, beautiful and serene, and his father’s true wife had seen to it that she was burned alive. They’d taken him from the ashes of his former home, to raise him right, but he’d run away as soon as he was able. The woods were better for him.

Kylo chooses his words carefully, as that is his way. “My father was a bandit. My mother was a beast. My uncle was a sorcerer, as his father before him. My grandmother was a queen. My cousin and I both had the choice presented to us, and we each chose differently. She stayed with our family, to be taught all manners of magic. I chose the path of raw strength, and went out on my own. I miss them, but not so much that I would return.”

Hux wonders what sort of man would choose only one area of magic when many are available to learn. His mother had been a healer, a protector. She’d shrouded him in her magic, allowing him to survive the fire while she did not. All he knew was how to be a shield, which was fitting. Kylo had become his sword.

Kylo and Millicent got along well, unified by their fierce protectiveness towards Hux. Often, Hux will find his familiar curled around Kylo’s neck, softly kneading his cloaked shoulder. At first he’d worried that her newfound devotion meant that Millicent was choosing a new master, but when he’d voiced this worry, Kylo had only laughed.

“Familiars serve witches, and I am no witch. She feels a kinship with me, sees me as a beast.”  
“Perhaps she believes me to be replacing her.”  
“I cannot be your familiar, witch.”  
“I wouldn’t ask you to be.”  
“But I can stay with you, as long as you want me.”  
“To stay?”  
“We can pretend that is what I meant, if you prefer.”

Because Kylo isn’t fully human. He’d chosen the path of strength, like his mother had. He is by rights mostly beast. And so many lies are told about witches. How they dance nude by the light of the full moon, lay with beasts, and sell their bodies to the devil for power. How they are blights to common folk, and must be shunted off into the wild, to better serve their true natures. Hux has never danced, naked or not. He doesn’t believe that the devil exists, and his protection spells only harm people with evil intent. Those that mean him no harm can pass by peacefully. But he is loathe to allow a beast to touch him, no matter how desperately he wants him to.

Hux wakes sweating, more often than not, chasing away dreams of large, pale hands and dark hair, sharp-toothed smiles and bloody fingerprints on his skin. Kylo sleeps like the dead on the rug by the hearth, a wolf. He is always a wolf, unless Hux is paying direct attention to him.

One day, Kylo loses the favor of his pack. They turn against him, chasing him through the woods until he’s within sight of Hux’s small cabin. He is bigger than all of them, but when they all converge on him, he can’t help but fall. Hux is out in moments, fire all around him. The wolves flee, too afraid to realize it was just an illusion. Hux can barely drag Kylo into his home, the bulk of him a dead weight in his arms. He heals the worst of his wounds the best he can, getting Kylo conscious and human and into his tub. Washes the blood off, discerns just what else he has to work on. His concentration breaks when Kylo takes his face in wet, callused hands.

“My life is yours now, you know.”  
“Your life is your own, if I should manage to heal you proper.”  
“I am in debt to you.”  
“You are delirious with blood loss and exhaustion.”  
“If your familiar will allow it, I would be your knight.”  
“Take it up with her later. For now, be quiet.”

Kylo’s body is raw and stinging from all the newly knit flesh. He leaves his bloody cloak on the floor and stumbles about Hux’s home nude, until Hux forces him to lay down in his bed.

“But where will you sleep?”  
“I can sleep above the covers, it is a warm night.”  
“As am I.”  
“Stop that.”

Kylo sleeps fitfully, and Hux scrubs the blood from his cloak. He’d never touched the thing before, and marveled at its thickness. No wonder Kylo went nude beneath it, it was as warm as if it had just been skinned off a massive beast. It takes ages to clean, and by then, Hux is exhausted. His bed has never looked more inviting but then, it has never had more than one occupant.

Hux wakes up overheated to find that Kylo is a wolf again, his massive body laying across Hux’s stomach. As he watches, Kylo shifts slowly between human and wolf. Nude, fur, nude, fur. His cloak is drying in the kitchen. Kylo wakes midway between forms, nails deadly and teeth extended past his lips, his body human, but covered in fur. He looks beastly and dangerous and Hux aches.

He sits up without thinking, reaching for Kylo before coming back to his senses. He pulls back, but Kylo takes his wrist.

“Will you kiss me if I beg?” Kylo asks, sharp teeth going benign. “Will you let me hold you if I promise to protect you always? Will you love me if you know that I watched you and wanted you and hunted for you without ever expecting to get this close?”

His words feel trapped behind the lump in his throat. Kylo is fully human again; no teeth, no claws, no fur. He is beautifully, gloriously human, clutching his forearms in the bruising grip of a man in his last desperate attempt to be heard.

“Will you stay with me after you’ve gotten what you wanted?” Is what comes out, and Kylo freezes. Hux’s father hadn’t. The few people that braved the woods to buy healing herbs and charms didn’t.

“All I want is you.” Kylo says quietly, in the same hoarse tone of voice he’d used to introduce himself all those months ago. “I couldn’t leave if I wanted to, not unless you were coming with me.”

It’s like an explosion, rocking Hux to his core. He’s got his hands in Kylo’s hair before he can think, dragging him up and forward. Kylo growls low in his throat as some of his new skin bunches uncomfortably when he bends over Hux, trapping him between his body and the pillows. Hux is trembling as they kiss, as if pulling Kylo to him was as much as he could manage on his own. He gasps as Kylo pulls back to mouth at his chin, his neck. Makes a noise of annoyance when Kylo rips open his shirt to kiss down his chest. Makes a completely different noise when Kylo stops at his nipples, playing with them long enough that they go from soft and pink to stiff and red.

Kylo explores Hux’s body thoroughly, with his hands and mouth. It is the first time he’s seen Hux nude, and he delights in finding the truth in all the things he’s wondered about. He loves Hux’s soft, flat stomach with its trail of coppery hair. He loves Hux’s smooth, pale thighs and skinny calves. He loves the noises Hux makes when he dips his tongue into the hollow of his hips. “Bird bones.” He coos up at him, lovestruck and silly. “Eat you up.”

Hux wails when Kylo takes his cock in his mouth, and Kylo shivers. Hux isn’t the type of witch to dance nude in the moonlight or make deals with demons, but the pitches his voice has gone to when chanting his wards is as unearthly as he is. That voice begins to moan his name, and Kylo feels blessed.

Hux shoots down his throat with a scream, nails digging into the base of his neck, and Kylo comes against his leg. He pulls back and stares, dazed, as Hux opens and closes his mouth silently.

“You’re part of me now.” He whispers unthinkingly, crawling up the bed to lay his head on Hux’s shoulder. His lips brush against Hux’s neck as he speaks, and the thinner man hasn’t stopped shivering. “Soon, I’ll be part of you, too. It’ll be old magic that binds us then.” Kylo’s eyes have always been a deep brown, but this close, Hux can see the flecks of red and gold. His heart speeds up. These are not the eyes of a man, nor a beast. These are the eyes of something ancient and wild, something he’d convinced himself, in the dark of the night and the silence of the wood, did not exist.

And yet here he was.

“You lied to me.” He says softly. Not an accusation, just a fact. Kylo ducks his head, ashamed for the first time in his long existence.

“I never lied, I simply never told you everything. My father was a bandit. My mother was a beast. My uncle was a sorcerer, as his father before him. My grandmother was a queen. When we came of age, my cousin and I were given a choice. She stayed with our family, to be taught all manners of magic…and I chose to leave the underworld, better to be the strongest being among humans than just another creature.” He nuzzles Hux’s neck, licking at his pulse. “You are not bound to me, yet. If you wish it, you could make me leave. For you, I would leave.”

Hux’s heart pangs painfully in his chest. He has made no deals, yet a demon has come forth and bound itself to him anyway. It has been five years now, since Kylo first walked through his wards, no malice in his heart towards their caster. He has kept every promise, protected Hux at every opportunity. Fed him, warmed him, eased his loneliness.

“Why did they turn against you?” He asks, staring out the window at the crescent moon. “The wolves?”

“I stopped them from killing a human. They were too close to your land, you would have been blamed. Others would have come for you. Doing that showed that I placed your life above theirs, that I wasn’t pack. I won’t miss them.” Hux brings up a hand, carding it through Kylo’s hair.

“Will I have to leave this place?” This cabin was his home. These woods were the only place he’d ever felt safe.

“Only if you wish to.” Kylo felt peace here. Defending Hux’s land felt like more of a calling than blood sport ever had.

“Will you steal my power from me? Leave me weak and defenseless?” Kylo sat up, kneeling as if in prayer.

“I would sooner die.” He says fiercely, face wolfish for a moment before he remembers himself.

Hux believes him.

“Well we’ll have to do this right then, won’t we? Light of the full moon, oaths, all that. To be bound to someone, feels like there should be a bit of ceremony to it.”

Kylo laughs. From where she’s been accidentally banished to on the windowsill, Millicent hisses.

Hux ends up binding himself to Kylo mere hours later, riding him until his legs give out, Kylo’s mouth sealed on his to hold back his cries. They do make love in the light of the full moon, Hux spread out on Kylo’s cloak as he gasped his oath into the cool of the night, but that was for the sheer pleasure of it.

There is a cabin deep in the woods. It is full of green growing things and tanned hides, books and crystals. If you are brave enough to seek a boon, the witch of the wood will grant it, but beware. Come as a friend, and go in peace.

If the witch’s wards do not find the evil in your heart, his demonic knight will. And he is not as merciful.

**Author's Note:**

> On Tumblr as [thirstmastercrylo](thirstmastercrylo.tumblr.com)


End file.
